Thanks for the reply. I tried Akai again just a short time ago and got on without difficulty. I'd speculate their servers were down for a while.
I successfully installed the software, have an Addictive Drums track set up that I can trigger the Addictive Drums from the effect window (by clicking on the individual drums) but I still can't get AD to recognize the LPD8. I have read the LPD8 manual, and it's not much help. It did say to select LPD8 from drop down on the first midiInfo window that opens up when launching the LPD8 Editor, but it's all gone south after that. I'll struggle along to see what settings are not right, but I'm new to all of it so I might have to post it as a stand alone question as to how I can get my LPD8 to trigger AD.